November seems to be more and more a month for the completion of life with funerals this week already celebrated and more in the week to come. Pray for those souls and those who weep and mourn for them. Pray for the Holy Souls whose names are listed on the special lectern by the Baptismal font. The Paschal Candle burns next to it as the hope of the light of Christ which they will eventually gaze upon. Pray for them by going through the memory lane of your family and neighbours who are long since dead and commend them to God. Each year old names are crossed off my address book as folk a called to God from this life and new ones are added of course.

Today the readings are to do with the Last Things or The End Time. Malachi uses the phrase: "all the arrogant and the evil doers will be like stubble" (before the fire) and you see how quickly stubble is burnt when the harvest is over.

It is sad to say but there is arrogance about the way our society and the West in general is going. It is preoccupied with making new "Hate" crimes when by doing so they suppress the free speech of those who wish to express and have an opinion that certain things should not be praised and seen as normal. By believing in the kind of Morality that has been in our culture for 2000 years we now put ourselves in the category of "hate criminals". They exonerate the real evil doers and praise them and even appoint them to high Office whereas the humble folk are even deprived of giving an orphan a good home because the couple might hold Christian understanding of male and female – good and evil. The Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor recently said in a speech that it was a bad day for freedom when the rights of religious believers were totally persecuted in favour of the new morality.

The Pope Benedict made the same reference when he spoke to Civil Society gathered in Westminster Hall on his Visit to Britain. It is no longer, live and let live but You mate must hold to be true what I say otherwise you are guilty of hate but I am not guilty of hate against you!!

The Pope said that the freedom to believe is being reduced to ones inner conscience and cannot be expressed in the public forum on questions of morality. Well – at the Marriage course for example I will continue to teach the sanctity of the marriage of man and woman as the plan of God following the Natural law.

I saw all this begin when in Dublin of all places some young students were protesting about attempts to have an abortion Law in Ireland. They were arrested for offending public decency because they carried a model in plastic of the human baby at various stages of development. It happened in UK a few weeks ago. A silent protest outside an abortion clinic was showing pictures of aborted babies, and were arrested by the Police for causing stress!

So the Final Judgement is awaited for us all. It won’t be a matter of a breakdown of our civilization but more cosmic than that. All the science tells us about the history of the universe presupposes we had a beginning whether it was the Big Bang or not and therefore there will be an end. Believers see it as a Final Judgement when Christ will be all in all and there will be a final reckoning and all evil doers will be exposed for what they are. They won’t all be unbelievers either! They won’t all be lay folk either!! However all will be exposed in an instant. The very heavens will show fearful signs our Lord tells us – earthquakes and plagues- famines – betrayals even from within the family…these things have already happened in many places but our Lord talks about the whole world as we know it being caught up in this as a sign that the end is near.

However – we are to stand firm with our heads held high awaiting our deliverance for it will surely come and our Lord will take us and our faithful endurance will win us our lives and our souls.

Now – there is something to cheer you up!

God bless from me

Fr Tom Connolly

MARY'S MEALS FUNCTION AT ST ANNE’S STRETFORD LAST TUESDAY MADE £800 AND THEREFORE ABLE TO BUY A THIRD KITCHEN.

THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT AND YOUR CONTINUAL SUPPORT THROUGH THE YEAR. DONATIONS IN THOSE LITTLE BOXES CONSTANTLY COME IN. "MARY'S MEALS"